While there are a lot of stories I love in video games, it's easy to remember one of the first series that really caught my attention with its cinematic flair and style. Soul Reaver and the entire Legacy of Kain series made its mark by having a complex, in-depth, and wonderfully acted and written story in a time frame when that sort of thing was extremely rare. It's pretty telling that it holds up well to this day. It makes sense, since the main writer and director, Amy Hennig, is also the person responsible for the iconic Uncharted series. I'd argue that the Legacy of Kain games still eclipse even those.

The Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1&2 Remastered picks up following the bad ending of The Legacy of Kain: Blood Omen. Kain, the theoretical savior of the land of Nosgath, refused to sacrifice himself to prevent the corruption from overtaking the land. Instead, he used his new vampiric powers to conquer the world, using horrific machines to block the sunlight and create an unholy brood of vampire spawn. One of these, Raziel, committed the ultimate sin: He gained the ability to fly with wings — something his sire couldn't do. Kain responded by promptly torturing Raziel, tearing his wings to pieces, and tossing him into a pit of eternal suffering. Raziel survived, clinging to life as an unholy specter bound to the machinations of an elder god. The god offered Raziel the chance for revenge as a devourer of souls. Thus, Raziel sets out to slay his former master and discover the truth behind the dark past of Nosgath.

Soul Reaver's plot is weird. It's best described as a gothic vampire time travel mystery, and even that doesn't quite get into how messy it gets. It is a game where time paradoxes are absolutely central to the core plot and characters. It's a story that has been written and rewritten due to the necessities of time, budget and marketing. It's really telling that the games stand up so well and manage to keep their bonkers plots engaging throughout. While Soul Reaver can largely be played alone, it's recommended you try Legacy of Kain: Blood Omen (available as a PS1 classic) beforehand. It sets up a huge amount of the backstory for what Soul Reaver eventually covers.

Perhaps the first thing to discuss about the collection is the remastered graphics. The Soul Reaver games lived and died by their gothic atmospheric visuals. Despite the intense limitations of the PS1, they were a masterclass in how strong art design could convey tone and atmosphere despite basic 3D visuals. Soul Reaver Remastered does a full pass over all the visuals, similar to the recent Tomb Raider collection, redoing and revamping all of the character models to give them more texture and depth. As with that collection, you can also instantly swap between the new and old versions at the touch of a button, but I rarely found myself wanting to go back to the old graphics.

For the most part, the remastered visuals look great. They convey the same basic concepts in a way that looks more like I remembered it looking versus how it actually looked. There's a lot of subtle details that were lost among the somewhat blurry low-res models, such as one of the earlier bosses having a distinctly biomechanical look. There are a few cases where I wasn't as fond of some of the updated designs, but that's kind of inevitable when you're taking a muddy PS1 texture and giving it definition. In particular, the game's remaster shines most in areas with light and shadows, looking leaps and bounds better than the original. Raziel is also one of the hugest improvements; he now resembles the character who appeared on the box art, down to the ominously glowing eyes and delightfully pointy haircut.

However, the graphics in Soul Reaver Remastered pale in comparison to the voice work. Soul Reaver's voice cast was one of the more stacked to exist in gaming, from Simon Templeton's phenomenal role as Kain to the near-perfect voice of the sadly departed Tony Jay as the mysterious elder god, to Michael Bell's fantastic Raziel. The voice acting is essential, and the remaster does it justice. There are some areas where the sound mixing is weird; in particular, the pre-rendered cut scenes seemed notably higher than the in-game audio, but generally, the voice work is pretty consistent throughout. Likewise, the ominous and atmospheric soundtrack still sounds great.

Soul Reaver and Soul Reaver 2 are contemporaries to both the original Tomb Raider games and the N64 Zelda titles, and the games really do feel like a mix of the two. They are a semi-linear action/adventure game with a huge emphasis on exploration and puzzle-solving. The first game is more open than the second, encouraging you to backtrack to find hidden health upgrades à la Zelda's hearts, while the second is more linear and straightforward and feels more akin to the Tomb Raider titles.

In a similar fashion to the Zelda games, you'll also gain new upgrades and powers as the games progress and unlock new areas or new ways to explore. In the first game, this is largely built around Raziel gradually gaining new powers from his defeated brothers, such as the ability to phase through the environment or climb up walls, while the second has specialized magic reavers that grant specific powers.

Probably the coolest power — and the thing the games are built around — is the shift between the material and spiritual realm. Raziel is the rare double-undead, the ghost of a vampire, and thus can't sustain himself in the material realm without feeding on the souls of defeated enemies. Should Raziel die or not feed, he'll be sent back to the spiritual realm. The two different realms have different advantages and disadvantages. As a ghost, Raziel can't interact with physical objects in the environment, like switches, weapons, and living enemies. On the other hand, the spiritual world is a twisted place, and paths may exist in the world of ghosts that don't exist in the mortal world, thus encouraging a constant swapping between the two realms.

The result is that Soul Reaver's world is interesting to explore. The constant swapping between two dimensions, the otherworldly spiritual realm, the loathsome corrupted physical realm, and a wide variety of puzzles keep the games feeling constantly engaging. There is a heavy reliance on box-pushing puzzles (as was the style at the time), which can be occasionally tedious, but the game is pretty good about keeping you moving forward at a good pace.

Combat in Soul Reaver and its sequel is fairly straightforward. Raziel is armed with brutal talons and can rend enemies to pieces with simple attack combos. This isn't a huge issue against mortal foes, but against vampiric or ghostly enemies, he'll usually need to find a special way to vanquish them. Vampires can be tossed into water or onto stakes, or Raziel can grab weapons from the environment. Defeated enemies drop Souls, which can be used to sustain Raziel's powers or unleash the titular Soul Reaver, an immensely cool-looking glowing sword made of raw ghostly energy that is lashed to Raziel's arm. The combat in the first game is straightforward, while the sequel adds some dodging, countering, and specialized finisher moves.

If there's one thing that has aged poorly in the Soul Reaver games, it is the combat. It isn't necessarily bad. It's entirely functional and pretty on-par with similar games from is time frame. However, it's going to feel very basic to modern gamers because the combat usually amounts to dodging and attacking. There's some room for variety with different kinds of enemy executions or specific upgrades, but they don't do a fantastic job of adding variety to combat. There's just not a lot to it. Most of it involves mashing buttons and watching stuff fall over, with only a few of the boss fights really shining.

Combined, Soul Reaver and Soul Reaver 2 feel more like two parts of a game rather than a game and its sequel. They're not necessarily short, with each one lasting at least 10 hours, but it's pretty clear that both games had to trim down their very ambitious ideas in favor of having something that could get out the door. In some ways, it's very cool to see the concepts that never reached the final version still lingering on the edges. It makes the game world feel more lived-in. There's still a lot of engaging elements in the title, and they remain some of my favorite games, despite the lost potential.

Thankfully, the remastered versions of the games contain some much-needed adjustments and upgrades. Soul Reaver came from a time before the idea of having a camera on the right analog stick was normal. You couldn't even look up and down in the game. Remastered switches the camera control to something more standard and even adds a sky box to areas that previously lacked it. This is a huge blessing and feels fantastic, but it occasionally runs into moments of the camera's auto-focus function struggling against the improved controls. There's also now an in-game map and compass that make exploration a tad easier, but the map is basic enough that it doesn't simplify things too much.

There is also a robust collection of bonus material, including concept art, fan art, cosplay photos, some minor lore things, copies of the game's scripts and more. They're neat and a lovely love letter to fans, but nothing too special. Probably the thing that is most going to disappoint people are the 'lost levels.' The first Soul Reaver was infamously cut down, with the final quarter or so of the game cut before shipping. (Originally, it had intended to be a more conclusive ending, rather than the cliffhanger in the final version.) While bits and snippets of this lost final act have been found in various forms, Remastered promises a more in-depth look at the lost areas. In practice, this means you get a bunch of unfinished, empty rooms or small areas where you can wander around. It's a neat look at the backrooms of an unfinished game, but its appeal is going to be limited to people who really think it's cool to look around an unfinished PS1-era dungeon room. That isn't to say it doesn't have value, especially for preservation of history, but if you were hoping the "Lost Levels" might be something with gameplay, you would be disappointed.

The Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1&2 Remastered is a lovely collection of two classic titles that allows them to shine. There's still roughness that comes from age, but the areas of the game that shined the most, including its atmosphere, script and voice acting, remain as excellent as ever. Most of the adjustments to the two games make the rougher parts more palatable to modern gamers. You still need to have some patience for the PS1-era of action/adventure games, but if you do, it's well worth it to see one of the greatest cult classics in video game history.

Score: 8.0/10